This article studies various holiday distributions, the most interesting one being Easter. Gauss' Easter algorithm and Microsoft Excel are used to determine that the Easter distribution can be closely approximated by the convolution of two well-known uniform distributions.
This article shows how to use Microsoft Excel to get data from the Internet into a statistically usable form.
Learning basic statistical concepts does not need to be tedious or dry; it can be fun and interesting through cooperative learning in the small-group activity of Statistics Poker. This article describes a teaching approach for reinforcing basic statistical concepts that can help students who have high anxiety and makes learning and reinforcing these concepts more interesting and fun.
This article sets out a vision for the general nature of the statistics curriculum in the medium to long term.
Many students have difficulty seeing the conceptual 'link' between bivariate data displayed in a scatterplot and the statistical summary of the relationship, r. This article shows how to teach (and compute) r such that each datum's 'direct' and 'indirect' influences are made apparent and used in a new formula for calculating Pearson's r.
This article shows how R can be used to perform resampling with and without replacement.
Turkey cooking provides an opportunity to show off a real use of statistics.<br>This article expresses concern for the sloppy language that is often used by the media to describe numerical comparisons and suggests guidelines for how such comparisons should be described such that the meanings are unambiguous.
This article expresses concern for the sloppy language that is often used by the media to describe numerical comparisons and suggests guidelines for how such comparisons should be described such that the meanings are unambiguous<br>This article expresses concern for the sloppy language that is often used by the media to describe numerical comparisons and suggests guidelines for how such comparisons should be described such that the meanings are unambiguous.<br><br>This article expresses concern for the sloppy language that is often used by the media to describe numerical comparisons and suggests guidelines for how such comparisons should be described such that the meanings are unambiguous.<br><br>This article expresses concern for the sloppy language that is often used by the media to describe numerical comparisons and suggests guidelines for how such comparisons should be described such that the meanings are unambiguous.<br><br>This article expresses concern for the sloppy language that is often used by the media to describe numerical comparisons and suggests guidelines for how such comparisons should be described such that the meanings are unambiguous.<br><br>This article expresses concern for the sloppy language that is often used by the media to describe numerical comparisons and suggests guidelines for how such comparisons should be described such that the meanings are unambiguous.<br><br>This article expresses concern for the sloppy language that is often used by the media to describe numerical comparisons and suggests guidelines for how such comparisons should be described such that the meanings are unambiguous.
In an effort to align evaluation with new instructional goals, authentic assessment techniques (see, e.g., Archbald and Newmann 1988, Crowley 1993, and Garfield 1994) have recently been introduced in introductory statistics courses at the University of the Pacific. Such techniques include computer lab exercises, term projects with presentations and peer reviews, take-home final exam questions, and student journals. In this article, I discuss the University of the Pacific's goals and experiences with these techniques, along with strategies for more effective implementation.
In teaching introductory quantitative methods in sociology, I have used a controversial survey of mortality in Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion to highlight to students the power of simple questionnaires, the role of ambiguity in statistics and the place of politics in the framing of statistical results. This brief report summarizes Roberts et al.'s (2004) estimate that the invasion of Iraq resulted in 98,000 (95% CI = 8000 - 194,000) deaths, as well as the intriguing reaction that the survey received in the press. Statistics teachers should find the Roberts et al. study to be an effective way to introduce students to more controversial - and political - aspects of statistical research.